Our View: Eyes-wide-open approach

Right now, Crescent City isn’t really Crescent City. It’s one contiguous area of residential and commercial development, but most of its inhabitants are residents of unincorporated Del Norte County.

One community, two agencies of law enforcement. One community, two sets of land-use regulations and planning commissions. One community, two chief administrators. One community, two governing boards.

Obviously not the most efficient way to run things at a time when every iota of efficiency is needed at all government levels, from Washington, D.C., to Del Norte.

The actual municipality of Crescent City is small in population —
close to half of which resides behind bars at Pelican Bay State Prison.
But it’s a relative giant when it comes to provision of water and sewer
services — amenities long ago extended to all those non-city residents
who live nearby.

And there’s the rub. Typically when cities extend such services, it’s
at the price of annexation: You want our water and sewer services, you
become one of us. Somehow, years ago, that didn’t happen in Crescent
City. Services were extended without annexation.

Today, annexation could be a tough sell. The mayor talks of the value
of giving all the users of city services the right to vote on issues
affecting them. He points to the recent ballot measure proposing to
remove fluoride from the water supply — only city residents voted on the
matter.

Are residents and property owners in the vast unincorporated portions
of Crescent City so worked up over the lack of such voting rights that
they’re ready to be annexed into the city?

Then there’s law enforcement. Slert notes that annexation would
extend the police department’s anti-drug education efforts while
allowing the Sheriff’s Office to expand patrols in outlying areas of the
county. In reality, the changes would seem to be much more dramatic.
The Police Department would have to significantly expand in order to
serve a much wider area, and the Sheriff’s Office would have to shrink
unless we’re agreeable to paying higher local taxes for an overall
increase in law enforcement spending. Whether outlying areas would gain
better protection in such a scenario is uncertain.

The only way to avoid such upheaval would be for the city to contract
with the Sheriff’s Office to continue to patrol urban areas that had
been newly annexed, but that would perpetuate one of the unnecessary
complications of having two layers of local government for a single
community.

We raise these issues not to discourage consideration of annexation,
but rather to urge an eyes-wide-open approach to reforming local
government. Maybe a bigger municipality is the best answer. Maybe
consolidating the city and county governments into a single entity —
something Del Norte has come close to doing in the past — is the more
logical approach.

You know, like this: One community, one law enforcement agency. One
community, one set of land-use regulations and one planning commission.
One community, one chief administrator. One community, one governing
board.

Or we can do what government seems to specialize in: Endlessly study
the issue without effecting change.

The challenge is great, and frankly the biggest obstacle to overcome
is the natural reluctance of those already in power — both elected
officeholders and government employees — to shake things up at potential
personal cost to themselves and their public employees.

Ultimately, public officials must do what’s right for the public. We
should demand nothing less.

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